What to Expect from Facebook’s New Algorithm

The future of Facebook seems a bit daunting. Zuckerberg’s announcement on algorithm changes have somewhat put a lot of marketers and businesses in a state of unrest. But the main question they’re asking: “How exactly will this affect my presence on Facebook?” Engagement is playing a big part in the prioritization of posts and marketers plan on increasing their organic posts by 62% to combat the algorithm. The changes are slowly rolling out, but businesses are already seeing a difference in their Facebook Ad results and post analytics.

In short, Facebook’s algorithm will be based on engagement. Posts with “meaningful interactions” will take precedent in News Feed presence. Here is what Facebook considers as meaningful interactions:

A person reacting to another person’s post (Likes and all of their variations).

Multiple people replying to other people’s posts.

People sharing and talking about content via messenger.

These parameters will affect posts from your personal Facebook, Facebook Groups, and Pages. This means that organic posts will receive less traffic and posts that contain external links will get less visibility. If you’re a business, this means less traffic to your website. Videos will also be effected and get less watch time. Essentially, if your posts don’t receive a lot of engagement, you’re getting the short end of the stick. And as a business, this could hurt.

But does it mean the end of the road? Not necessarily. The solution, right now, would be to invest more into Facebook Advertising. However, this could cause a supply & demand issue. As more businesses invest into Facebook Ads, it will cause prices to rise. Overtime, you will be investing more money for the same result. The most important thing would be to see what your current and potential customers are doing. If you see them leave Facebook for Twitter, LinkedIn, or another social platform, follow them. You go wherever they go. People have dedicated a lot of time to Facebook, but if they customer base is not there, then there’s no need to be there.